Effort - Effortlessness

 

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Effort - Effortlessness

The logical mind creates the problem between effort and effortlessness, because the mind says that these two things are contradictory. If we make an effort, we make effort; how can we make it effortlessly? If we become effortless, there is no effort; all effort disappears. So, the mind divides these two – effort and effortlessness. But try to understand this in a different way.

A child is playing and he is absolutely absorbed in his play – so much so that even if a neighbour’s building falls and collapses he may not even hear the sound. He is absorbed… maybe making sandcastles, but he is absolutely absorbed. There is effort, tremendous effort – the child is perspiring – and yet there is no effort because the child is simply playing; there is no motive. Or a painter is painting, a singer is singing, a dancer is dancing, a jeweller is creating something.

We are absolutely absorbed in whatever we are doing. Then effort is there and yet it is effortless. It is not a tension on us. It is not a duty that we have to do. We are delighted in doing it. A sculptor is creating a work of art. There is effort – he may start perspiring; but still there is no effort. The sculptor loves his creation – it comes from within effortlessly.

We enjoy it; we are absorbed in it. We are completely drowned in it. It is a play and there is no motivation in it. We are not doing it for any other reason; we are doing it for doing’s sake. Then there is tremendous joy in it. When we say effortless effort, we mean doing something with no other motive than the very pleasure of doing it.

Then suddenly we will see that the contradiction has disappeared. For example, two people are conversing. There is effort and there is no effort, because we are just talking for no other purpose, just a casual conversation. Talking is effort – but there is no effort because we love it, because we love each other. When Swamiji is rendering a discourse to a large gathering, he does not see anybody from the stage, he is completely lost in it. There is nobody standing behind him; he is talking to all of us effortlessly simply because of the love for us that flows through him.

When Swamiji is talking, he is just talking. The effort is there and yet there is no effort. The contradiction exists only for the logical mind, because the logical mind cannot understand play; it can understand only work. It can understand rest; it can understand work.

It cannot understand work which is rest too. So, whenever work becomes play the contradiction is gone. And when contradictions are not there a harmony arises in the opposites. We have something of the beyond penetrating us… a ray of light.